Rubin Carter | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Carter in 1958 | |
| Born | May 6, 1937 Clifton, New Jersey, U.S. |
| Died | April 20, 2014 (aged 76) Toronto, Ontario, Canada |
| Citizenship |
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| Spouse |
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| Children | 2 |
| Boxing career | |
| Other names | The Hurricane |
| Statistics | |
| Weight(s) | Middleweight |
| Height | 5 ft 8 in (1.73 m) |
| Reach | 72 in (183 cm)[1] |
| Stance | Orthodox |
| Boxing record | |
| Total fights | 40 |
| Wins | 27 |
| Wins by KO | 19 |
| Losses | 12 |
| Draws | 1 |
| Signature | |
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Rubin "Hurricane" Carter (May 6, 1937 – April 20, 2014) was an American-Canadian middleweight boxer. After a faulty murder conviction in 1967, he became a cause célèbre for miscarriage of justice. His sentence was eventually overturned, and he moved to Canada where he would fight for innocent people who had been wrongly convicted.[2]
A native of New Jersey, he was in and out of trouble as a youth. In 1966, Carter and a supposed accomplice were arrested for a triple homicide. In 1967, they were convicted and given life sentences, to be served in Rahway State Prison; a retrial in 1976 upheld their sentences. The sentences were overturned in 1985, and the men were set free.
After his release in 1985, Carter moved to Canada, where he became an active advocate for criminal justice reform and worked to assist others who had been wrongfully convicted. He also authored an autobiography, The 16th Round, in which he recounted his life journey and the years he spent in prison.[3]
Carter's autobiography, titled The Sixteenth Round, written while he was in prison, was published in 1974 by Viking Press. The story inspired the 1975 Bob Dylan song "Hurricane", and the 1999 film The Hurricane, starring Denzel Washington as Carter. From 1993 to 2005, Carter served as executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted (later renamed Innocence Canada). In 2019, the case was the focus of a 13-part BBC podcast series, The Hurricane Tapes. The series was based on interviews which were conducted with survivors, case notes which were taken during the original investigations, and 40 hours of recorded interviews of Carter by the author Ken Klonsky, who cited them in his 2011 book The Eye of the Hurricane.
- ^ "BoxRec: Rubin Carter".
- ^ "Rubin 'Hurricane' Carter dead at 76". CBC News. April 20, 2014. Retrieved April 21, 2014.
- ^ Rubin Carter, The 16th Round: From Number 1 Contender to Number 45472, Viking Press, 1974, ISBN 978-0399110924.